Pages did not autosave - I lost about 5 hours of a pages doc.

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Level 1

11 points

Pages did not autosave - I lost about 5 hours of a pages doc.

I worked on a pages doc saved for the second time 11.05 am. At 4.53pm Pages app froze while I was trying to save the document to close the computer. In the end I force quit. No autosaves after 11.05 am were retrievable - the temp folder (terminal > open $TMPDIR) was empty. Pages revert had nothing after 11.05 save.

Normally after restarting the app all but the last few moments are retrieved by 'open the last autosave'.

What happened? Can I rely on Pages app autosave to work? Has this version got a glitch?

Mac Sonoma 14.2.1 Pages 13.2

MacBook Pro 15″

Posted on Jan 22, 2024 9:32 PM

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Answer 1

VikingOSX

Level 10

124,178 points

Jan 23, 2024 3:47 AM in response to franzeli

Pages autosave will save document changes about every 10 - 15 seconds to the local drive or iCloud Drive where it was designed to do so. The autosave to iCloud timing is dependent on the network connection to Apple's iCloud servers. Autosaves occur only after an initial manual save — something that should be done before any content is entered into a new document. They do not occur if nothing has changed in the document.

I always recommend Time Machine backups to an externally mounted storage device when using Pages so that one can at least have a chance of restoring the document from the time of the last backup — provided the document was changed since the previous Time Machine backup an hour previous.

The Pages Revert To > Browse all versions is dependent on each editing session between the time you open and close the same document before quitting Pages, not on autosave events.

I have never seen Pages offer any dialog about "open the last autosave" after a hang, crash, or power outage. I am using Pages v13.2 on Sonoma 14.3 and Ventura 13.6.4, or Pages v13.1 on Monterey 12.7.3 and it just works without what you have experienced.

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Answer 2

VikingOSX

Level 10

124,178 points

Jan 23, 2024 3:12 PM in response to franzeli

Unless the freezing of Pages damaged the document to a point where it cannot be reopened, the file should still be present on your HD. It will be all there is to recover.

My Macs all have a properly sized (2.5 - 3x internal drive size) Time Machine backup drive and every hour the Mac is on, it gets backed up by Time Machine. These are not full backups but incremental based on what has changed.

If you don't do this, Time Machine will accumulate large Time Machine snapshots on your HD eating into your storage instead of shoving these onto a Time Machine drive on the hour.

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Answer 3

VikingOSX

Level 10

124,178 points

Jan 24, 2024 6:35 AM in response to franzeli

Pages does not keep any autosave information laying about as it cleans up after itself. If you have configured Spotlight and Spotlight Results > Documents, and Spotlight has indexed your HD, then the following syntax can find any Pages document that was indexed and still exists since (>) Dec 1, 2023:

kind:pages created:>12/01/2023

You can issue this in the search field of a Finder Window by clicking the 🔍 search area, or the 🔍 item at the top right of the macOS menu bar.

Search with Spotlight on Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 4

franzeli Author

Level 1

11 points

Jan 23, 2024 12:04 PM in response to VikingOSX

Thanks Viking.

The file is stored on HD not in the cloud.

Thank you for clarifying the REVERT functioning.

I think "open the last autosave" is actually an option MSWord presented, not Pages, apologies for the confusion.

I do not normally TM backup continuously, but rather after a period of work. The last backup was the day before.

Pages HAS prior to this event worked without problems over an extended period, hence my decision to switch to it for work purposes. However, yesterday's experience was very costly in terms of my hourly rate.

I note there is another thread 'Autosave in Numbers & Pages' 13.2 failing to autosave - Autosave in Numbers & Pages - Apple Community

I would appreciate if there is any advice (other than repeatedly saving, continuous TM backup) to verify that Pages autosave files can be retrieved after the app freezes.

Today I have restarted and performed disk first aid before starting work. I am hoping that at least this will fix the freeze that appears to have triggered by using command save at the end of the day.

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Answer 5

franzeli Author

Level 1

11 points

Jan 23, 2024 6:20 PM in response to VikingOSX

Thanks again Viking. Can you explain how to locate / recover the file (which you say should still be present on the HD). I was unable to locate any autosave files for the document - Terminal > open $TMPDIR. This ended up at a folder called T but I could not find any autosave of the document there.

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Pages did not autosave - I lost about 5 hours of a pages doc.

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